


Gender in B Minor

by Sub_Rosa



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work, Pathfinder (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 20:27:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7906459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sub_Rosa/pseuds/Sub_Rosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack always did have poor impulse control, and a predilection for hating himself.</p><p>Was it any wonder that when he got his hands on polymorphing magic, he threw himself into it before he could even change his mind?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Somewhere along the way, Jack realized, he’d forgotten how to live any other way.

 

How to feel like he was really truly  _ alive  _ at any time other than  _ this _ .

 

All he knew was the ultimate roar and thundering claps of the crowd, thrumming through his veins like… like fucking  _ paradise _ , lighting him up from the inside and letting him just fucking  _ forget _ . The searing light of the stage lights left him dissolving like a melting candle, like his flesh might just fall away from his bones (and maybe that might be a good thing) and like his jarring bones would crumple to an infinitely more manageable ash. And, of course, the twisted nigh-verboten shape of the guitar-which-was-not-a-guitar in his hands, still thrumming from the last chords. He gripped it as his only mouthpiece, because really, he’d forgotten how to speak like a normal person long ago.

 

This moment? When the show was over and the thrill had yet to die down, because the final moments were stretching out into hours? This was  _ life _ .

 

But then it was over, a fleeting taste of nectar stolen away by his own responsibilities - because, of course, he couldn’t keep himself in this moment forever. He knew on some level that it was just  _ dissociation  _ because he couldn’t stand to live as… as himself? Whatever. He still knew that he  _ had _ to live as himself, so he kept on going just by distracting himself occasionally - but of course, at the end of it all, the cheers of the crowd would die down and leave him in utter silence, and his body wasn’t  _ dissolving _ , just exhausted and sweaty, and the guitar-which-was-not-a-guitar was just a way to dodge opening up like a  _ normal  _ person.

 

So he smiled thinly and pulled himself up from his near-kneeling position at the lip of the stage and then as he stood, he bowed deeply.

 

“Encore!” Someone in the crowd screamed, and a dozen more echoed the sentiment.

 

Against his better judgement, he shook his head, packing up his esoteric instrument, and wandered off the stage for the next performer who would distract the barfolk.

 

He had places to be.

 

===

 

The night air was about as cold as he felt, to be truthful. Even though it felt whiny to phrase it that way - he was already black-haired, black-clothed (wearing a black  _ trench coat _ , even) and green-eyed with snow-white skin. Every bit the picture of the overly-dramatic over-emotional fuckers he’d made fun back when he was still in school, and the deliciously painful self-awareness of that made him want to smirk… or just maybe scream, but smirking was more likely and more fun.

 

So he turned to another bad habit to cope with the cold (or cope with the emotional bummer he felt). He rummaged through one of the many pockets that he didn’t strictly  _ need _ , pulling out an everburning lighter and some rolled-up stick of intoxicant that he’d ‘liberated’ from a Drow a few weeks ago, and lit it up, preparing to take a drag.

 

Then a pair of surprisingly-dainty fingers reached over his shoulder from behind and snatched his habit away.

 

“You  _ really _ shouldn’t be smoking again, Jack.”

 

Jack rolled his eyes, turning around to face his girlfriend. “Fuck you, Adri.” He said, not unkindly. “I learned healing magic for a reason.”

 

He whipped his hand out to grab the smoke back, but his lover leaned away at the exact last moment, shaking her head sternly.

 

“That doesn’t make it okay.” Adrianna maintained, shaking her head and sending her jagged brown hair flying about like a whip. “Just because you can heal, that doesn’t mean you should hurt yourself in the first place.”

 

Not for the first time, Jack wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all. “Look who’s talking, little miss berserker?”

 

Adrianna scowled, finally acquiescing and passing the cigarette back. As a self-professed barbarian and a front-line warrior, it wasn’t like she had any ground to stand on.

 

“It’s different for me.” She maintained as Jack began puffing on the stick of delectable poison. “I’m built for that kind of stuff. And you know I’m a bit of a worrier when it comes to you.”

 

“You’re such a lovable hypocrite.” Jack retorted. And Adrianna blushed.

 

“I… I don’t know what that means.” She said, turning away. Jack craned his head, blowing out a great gust of smoke away from Adrianna’s direction. Not that it would hurt her to breathe in the smoke, but it was just politeness.

 

Somehow, the high of the smoke wasn’t as good as it should have felt.

 

“Just… doing one thing and saying another.” Jack explained easily for the woman from the wilds, who hadn’t grown up in cushy cities of academia.

 

“Heh.” Adrianna murmured. “Sometimes I forget how much more you know.”

 

It felt wrong for Jack to claim credit for that knowledge, when he’d had so many more opportunities to learn - Adrianna had worked a thousand times harder to learn the words that she did know, living on the plains and warring with goblinfolk every day. Jack had just browsed through life until he found something he was almost passionate about, and picked it all up along the way.

 

To him, knowing what the word ‘hypocrite’ meant was just normal. It wasn’t special or laudable, and it made him feel awful to even be commended for it.

 

“Mmm.” Jack agreed noncommittally. “I didn’t start out trying to learn music, so I guess I can’t be so surprised if I know a bit.”

 

That took Adrianna by surprise, and she blinked hard.

 

“What were you trying to learn, then?”

 

Jack took another drag on on his cigarette, breathing in so hard that he almost extinguished the damn thing on the spot.

 

Then he dropped it and stomped on it underfoot, extinguishing it anyways.

 

“I grew up wanting to be… I don’t know. I had some kind of happy delusion of being a historian, and making sure that no-one was ever forgotten. Then I… well, I needed to take more classes to graduate back at Mis… back at my school. So I learned how to play the flute, I realized I enjoyed it in it’s own right, and the rest is… heh, history.”

 

Adrianna seemed at a loss for words, reaching out to grip his shoulder.

 

“That’s not a del… delusion. That’s just a very sweet ambition.”

 

Jack shrugged. “Didn’t exactly go anywhere.” He muttered, before shaking himself out of his funk. “But that’s enough about me. Where are the others?”

 

Adrianna led him along down the road, babbling all the way. “Oh, Neumann is still pitching a fit that we wouldn’t let him attend your concert.”

 

“Too bad for him, I don’t want him pickpocketing the crowd out of house and home!”

 

Adrianna laughed. “And, well, Jalor is doing fine. She’s still doing that weird sleeping-thing.”

 

“Meditating.” Jack supplied, shifting the strap of his guitar-that-was-not-a-guitar to keep it from digging into his broad shoulder.

 

“Yeah, that.”

 

Adrianna’s grip on him only intensified, causing him to shift awkwardly.

 

“Is there a reason you’re hugging me so tightly, Adri?”

 

“Do I need a reason?” She shot back, clinging so hard that he could feel the ridges of the scars that she gave herself every day.

 

“Everything has a reason.” He replied almost thoughtlessly and tonelessly. An old mantra.

 

“Well, yeah.” Adrianna replied. “But sometimes, it doesn’t help anything to look for a reason beyond ‘I wanted to.’”

 

And Jack chuckled, falling into the rut of an old argument.

 

“I wish I could believe that.”

 

===

 

By the time that Jack and Adrianna had returned to the hotel room that their little adventuring company was holed up in, Adrianna had given up all pretense of  _ not _ shamelessly coming onto Jack.

 

“Did you take something?” Jack found himself asking the slightly-older woman and finding himself concerned.

 

“Well… maybe a  _ little _ alcohol…” Adrianna giggled to herself. Jack rolled his eyes, strolling into the room where Neumann (both of him - his corporeal-half and his shadow-half) was playing poker with Jalor, who had abandoned meditation in favor of something much more fun.

 

Jalor was putting all her effort into  _ not _ reading Neumann’s minds, and Neumann was putting all of her effort into  _ not _ dispatching his shadow-doppelganger to peep on Jalor’s cards.

 

The life of an adventuring party in a snapshot.

 

“Hey, Jackie-boy!” Neumann crowed from behind a the sack of coin he was gambling on (a sack pitiful in comparison to Jalor’s own, which tore at his hoarder’s instinct like a scythe). “You play some nice tunes?”

 

“Yeah.” Jack muttered distractedly. “They were pretty nice. You should have been there.”

 

“Mmm, of course.” Neumann rolled his eyes before adopting a sarcastic tone. “I don’t know what I would do without your sweet, sweet music.”

 

“Fuck you, Neumann.”

 

The eternally cranky shadowdancer cackled like a loon, laying out his cards and causing Jalor to wail melodramatically at the royal flush she saw displayed.

 

“I don’t suppose you happened to make some money that I could borrow while you were gone?” Jalor asked, only to receive the slamming of a door in response.

 

“Methinks Jackie-boy is getting some hanky-panky.” Neumann snarked as he took stock of his winnings. “20 gold says that he’ll forget to use a silencing charm.”

 

“Sucker’s bet.”

 

===

 

To be honest, sex with Adri wasn’t even that great, all things considered for Jack. He did it because he loved her a  _ lot _ , not because he got much out of it. Because really, sometimes it felt like he couldn’t do any of the things he wanted to do. He wanted to use his hands, his mouth, his  _ everything _ , and have the same done to him in return, whereas Adrianna just kind of zoomed in on his dick like it was the best thing about him.

 

And yeah, that was… flattering? It was flattering, right? But still, sometimes he felt like Adrianna would be just as happy having sex with any other man or even just a big phallic object. Whatever. Not like it mattered.

 

And besides, he couldn’t tell her what he actually wanted, because that would require him to be honest with himself first. And that would sort of be a slippery fucking slope, wouldn’t it, because he might start being honest with himself about the feelings that he’s not supposed to have. Best to ignore those feelings anyways, they’re not actionable.

 

But still. In the stupid, sleepy haze of afterglow, he found his mouth tumbling open to say stupid sleepy things.

 

“What do you see in me?” He found himself asking. “Am I attractive to you?”

 

“Well, obviously.” Adrianna said shortly. I wouldn’t ask you to bend me over and fuck me if I felt otherwise, would I?”

 

“I wouldn’t know.” Jack replied. “I don’t exactly know what goes into the decision to ask to get fucked.”

 

And Adrianna snorted, rolling over and nuzzling into Jack’s neck and letting her own stupid, inebriated words slip out in the stupid, inebriated haze of afterglow. “Mmm, you think too much. Like the last time I fucked a needy teenage girl.”

 

“...I think I’m supposed to be offended, aren’t I?” Jack mused. “That’s the reaction that’s called for?”

 

“Or you could ask me to tell you more stories about my lesbian conquests.” Adrianna murmured. “That would also redeem your masculinity.”

 

Somehow, Jack felt otherwise.

 

By the gods, he wanted another smoke. But he didn’t get up or go for his lighter.

 

“How did that one time with the Dryad go?” He found himself asking, still just as stupid and sleepy.

 

He was dreaming before she could even finish recounting the foreplay.


	2. Chapter 2

“When that I was and a little tiny boy, with hey, ho, the wind and the rain-”

 

Jack’s guitar-that-was-not-a-guitar hummed sorrowfully as he played, seeming to give out in some miniscule way. He frowned and continued playing, though, almost experimentally, as he walked along the side of the road.

 

“A foolish thing was but a toy, for the rain it raineth every day...”

 

All around him, rotting tree stumps peaked from the surface of the earth like spines from the surface of a burr. All soft enough to trample through, if you were strong enough and inclined to try.

 

“But when I came to man's estate, with hey, ho, the wind and the rain…”

 

The guitar-that-was-not-a-guitar still sounded intangibly  _ off _ , though, and Jack stopped singing. He gave his instrument an experimental strum, only for it to give one last  _ twang _ as one of the strings gave way, tweaking into two.

 

“Ah,  _ shit _ .” Jack sighed. “Fuck fuck  _ fuck _ .”

 

This was no good at all, he would have to go all the way back to his old teachers to get it repaired, because the instrument was too exotic for him to properly understand, which would mean a huge detour for his adventuring party, which would be just another way he was dragging them down.

 

“Shit, shit,  _ shit _ .”

 

Sometimes, he  _ really _ hated playing support. Everyone said they couldn’t live without him, but it meant he was  _ such _ a weak point for his party. It meant he couldn’t stand on his own. It meant he was dependant on others.

 

He wasn’t  _ allowed _ to be dependant on others, he knew that quite well. And with a sigh, he sat down onto one of the rotten stumps, putting his carefully machined instrument to the side.

 

“What am I going to do…” He sighed, rather self-pityingly, and he hated himself for being self-pitying. It was an emotion even more disgusting than all others, in his opinion, but he still felt it. If he could have been, he would have been an ubermensch, but of course he was  _ really bad _ at being an ubermensch. He was also too stupid to give up on being an ubermensch, as he knew he should have long ago, but he still liked to think he was just a temporarily embarrassed badass, and not a pathetic twit.

 

There was a distant crackle of thunder, and he put his head into his hands.

 

**“You shouldn’t go playing instruments if you can’t do it properly, you know.”**

 

The stump underneath his butt shook from side to side slightly, as a feline shape seeped through a crack in the roots, out of the earth and into the light. It was covered in long, black hair, with yellow eyes and a voice beyond audible gender and age.

 

Jack, of course, was too fed-up to give the newcomer proper consideration, and he eyed it sleepily, suddenly feeling like he was in a dream. “Oh, fuck off. It’s not  _ my _ fault it gave out at the wrong moment.”

 

The cat (was it even a cat?) looked at him with no small amount of amusement.  **“You’re a feisty one, human.”**

 

Jack snorted. “I think my girlfriend would beg to differ.”

 

The cat cocked it’s head, and yowled immensely. It took Jack a moment to realize that it was  _ laughing _ .

 

**“Oh, my, I like you, human.”** The cat hissed, it’s ears folding back as it lay upon the ground, almost curling up into a ball.  **“And here I thought I was going to have to turn you into a donkey for the crime of waking me up.”**

 

“Thanks?” Jack said, more questioning than stating directly. “I’m glad to know that you’re not just a talking cat.”

 

**“A talking cat?”** The talking cat growled.  **“I’m no mere talking cat! I am a pooka!”**

 

“Of course.” Jack said amiably, although he had no  _ idea _ what in hell a ‘pooka’ was. “Forgive this poor human for his transgressions, I beg of you..”

 

The pooka nodded through half-lidded eyes.  **“Done.”**

 

An uncomfortable silence stretched out between them, before the pooka spoke up again.

 

**“You have a lovely singing voice, if nothing else, so I** **_suppose_ ** **that cancels out the awful din of your instrument… and then some.”** It said.  **“If nothing else, I suppose that more than makes up for your impropriety, as well.”**

 

“It is not lovely.” Jack said, blushing.

 

**“I’m pathologically incapable of lying, human, and I don’t take kindly to being told my judgement is poor.”**

 

“But my voice isn’t lovely! It isn’t!” Jack maintained. On the ground, the pooka stretched out, looking like it wanted nothing more than to be scritched and scratched, so Jack obliged.

 

**“Mmm, don’t think you can, oh, get out of this just by giving me snuggles…”** The pooka groaned.

 

Jack didn’t dignify the pooka with a response, just continuing to run his fingertips through the catlike creature’s fur.

 

**“Where** **_did_ ** **you get this instrument from, anyways?”** The pooka asked, looking at the gigeresque machine of black steel, in the shape of a flowing guitar. It wasn’t just a guitar, though.

 

“What, this thing?” Jack replied, picking it up, and twisting it around. “It was a graduation gift from my music teacher, back at school.” He frowned, looking lost in a memory. “I guess I always was a bit of a teacher’s pet for Professor Zann.”

 

The pooka pawed at the instrument idly.  **“Ah, a Miskatonic graduate. I once met a nice girl from that school. Too bad she tried to vivisect me and then set me on fire.”**

 

“Uh.” Jack said dumbly. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

 

**“Don’t be.”** The pooka waved him off, sounding vaguely frustrated.  **“It’s not your fault that** **_some_ ** **humans think everything they don’t understand must be an Aberration…”**

 

Jack wisely said nothing, letting the pooka air the chip on it’s shoulder.

 

**“Say, human.”** The pooka continued.  **“I could fix up your instrument for you. Maybe even do something special with it, give it more mystical oomph than it had before. What do you say?”**

 

“I say, ‘what’s the catch?’” Jack replied, tapping one of his feet against the ground. The pooka seemed to shrug with it’s entire quadrupedal body.

 

**“Well, let’s make a contract…”** It rambled.  **“I’ll tune up your instrument for you. Put it in tip-top condition, with a bonus. And in exchange, I want to hear your lovely singing voice again.”**

 

Jack considered the offer carefully. Put on the spot like that, he wasn’t a huge fan of his own voice, but he was good at ignoring that. “What kind of bonus?”

 

**“Mmm…”** The pooka trailed off.  **“This was tempered in Shoggoth blood, yes? Useful for transmutation magic… but you can’t work anything on yourself, can you?”**

 

“No?” Jack replied. The pooka was right - even though Jack could use music to shape flesh like clay, he couldn’t do the same to his own body. It was a safety feature built into the song-spells and into the instruments themselves.

 

**“So… I can add a work-around enchantment to this thing for you.”** The pooka said, chuckling.  **“So that when you play the instrument, you can transform yourself. How about it?”**

 

Jack thought about it harder than he’d thought about anything ever before. If he could shape his own flesh, he wouldn’t have to be weak anymore. He could buff himself in combat, and stand on his own.

 

Maybe it was an easier choice than it should have been.

 

“Do it.” Jack said. “And I’ll sing for you. When do you want to do this?”

 

The instrument shuddered briefly, strings snapping together and becoming whole. And the pooka stood up, looking absolutely self-satisfied.

 

**“I’ll find you when you’re ready to sing for me.”** It said smugly, walking back to the stump and crawling back under.

 

“What?” Jack asked. “But, how will you know when?”

 

**“The same way I knew what you needed me to give you!”** It replied, muffled by the rotten stump.  **“Now go away, human, and let me sleep.”**

 

Well, he could hardly argue with  _ that _ .

 

“Sweet dreams, cat.” He said, as he kept walking down the road.

 

**“Pooka!”** It replied.  **“I’m a pooka,** **_Jack!”_ **

 

Jack laughed - of  _ course _ the creature knew his name - and gave his guitar-which-was-not-a-guitar a probing strum.

 

It sounded better than it had in years.


End file.
